Honors Program
Communication. Critical thinking. Analytical adeptness. Flexibility. Adaptability. Teamwork. These skills form the basis for developing intellectual, civic and practical capacities. Together they are the product of a timeless and enduring liberal arts education. According to multiple surveys, these are also the skills that employers say that they most desire in their employees. The Albright College Honors Program challenges the most talented and motivated students to take these skills to an even higher level. If you wish to be truly challenged during your college education, the Albright College Honors Program is for you.
Incoming first year students who have reached a level of academic achievement are invited to apply. Or, you can apply if you have earned a 3.5 grade point average in your first semester. Occasionally students can apply to the program after their first semester. Check out these sections below to learn more about the Albright College Honors Program.
Why Consider the Honors Program?
Who Is Eligible for the Honors Program?
What Are the Requirements of the Honors Program?
What Are the Benefits of Joining the Honors Program?
What Is the Difference Between Academic Honors, Departmental Distinction, and College Honors?
Why Consider the Honors Program?
The Albright College Honors Program provides the support for you to take your learning and education to the next level. The program is designed to increase your access to the high impact practices that have been well-studied and have been shown to positively impact your college education. 
- Take innovative courses in classes that average 10 to 15 students.
- Be part of a supportive community of individuals who share a strong academic focus.
- Participate in service projects and trips organized by the Honors Club.
- Be eligible to live with other honors students as a first year student, be eligible for advanced selection of housing junior and senior years.
- Graduate with College Honors when you complete all the requirements of the Honors Program. (see Difference between College Honors, Academic Honors and Departmental Honors below)
Who Is Eligible for the Honors Program?
If you are a recipient of a Presidential Scholarship, you are eligible to join the Albright College Honors Program upon matriculation. Joining at this point allows you to take one of the First Year Honors courses created specifically for you and other eligible incoming first year students. Before registering for your first semester of classes, you will receive information about the First Year Honors courses being offered.
If you are not a recipient of a Presidential Scholarship, or if you are, but did not register for the Honors Program upon matriculation, you may join the Program if you have an Albright cumulative grade point average of 3.5 or higher. If you are in your first semester at Albright, you may join the Program if your midterm grade point average is 3.5 or higher.
Applying to the program is easy.
- If you are a current Albright student, you can either complete the online form or pick up a hard copy from the Registrar’s office or from Julia Heberle, the Director of the Albright College Honors Program. Dr. Heberle’s office is located in Teel Hall, room 207.
- Students who are not yet enrolled at Albright should contact the Admission Office at admission@albright.edu to discuss participation in the program with their admission counselor.
Join the Program as soon as you are eligible. In doing so, you will get the most out of the benefits of participation in the Program. Most students join either before or during their first semester at Albright. Although it is not ideal, it is certainly possible to join the Program later in your freshman year or in your sophomore year. Waiting longer than that, though, makes it difficult to fulfill all of the Honors requirements by the time you graduate. If you would like to join the Program later than your sophomore year, you will want to consult with your academic adviser and with the Director of the Honors Program to work out a strategy for fulfilling the requirements.
What Are the Requirements of the Honors Program?
Once you have joined the Albright College Honors Program, you must satisfy the following three requirements in order to complete the Program successfully.
- Take three Honors course or modules or independent study.
- Maintain the requisite grade point average.
- Successfully complete a Senior Honors Thesis.
Honors Courses
Engaging with faculty and fellow classmates in an Improve course at Albright College
Honors Courses make it possible for you to fulfill some course requirements in an enriched way. These courses are inquiry-oriented, with a limited enrollment. Topics vary from semester to semester and discipline to discipline. All Honors Courses you are required to take count toward your graduation requirements and they do not increase your overall course load. Of the three required Honors courses, at least one can be an introductory level course, such as ENG 102 or PSY 100. Other course opportunities include more advanced courses, which are designed to count toward general studies or concentration requirements.
You may also complete your unit requirements using Honors modules or an Honors independent study. To remain a member of the Honors Program in good standing, you must complete two of these courses by the end of your sophomore year and the third by the end of your junior year. (If there is a specific reason that you are waiting longer than usual to fulfill these requirements, please speak with your adviser and the director of the Honors Program).
Honors Modules
An Honors module gives you the opportunity to take a regular course for Honors credit by supplementing or replacing some course requirements with a special Honors project. These projects vary from course to course, so you will want to consult with the professor teaching the course to work out specific details. This consultation should take place as soon as possible, but optimally no later than the first week of the semester in which you are taking the course. You must take the initiative in setting up this meeting and you are encouraged (although not required) to arrive at the meeting with a suggestion of what your project might entail. Students are encouraged to have regular meetings with the instructor as a part of any module they design. Students are also encouraged to put the plans for the module in writing so that expectations for both student and instructor are explicit.
If you have a choice between taking an Honors course and an Honors module, it is usually preferable to take the Honors course. On some occasions, however, an Honors module may be precisely what you want, since it may give you an opportunity to explore in greater depth a topic that is studied only in non-Honors courses. An Honors module also makes it possible to use a regular course to meet your Honors requirements, as well as possibly a general studies or concentration requirement. This may be particularly useful if you have a scheduling conflict with the Honors courses that are being offered.
Honors Independent Study
An Honors independent study gives you the opportunity to arrange a specialized study with a particular professor. This makes it possible for you to explore specific areas of interest that are beyond the scope of regular course offerings. You may want to consider taking an Honors independent study in conjunction with your Senior Honors Project, during either your junior or senior year.
Grade Point Average
To join the Albright College Honors Program, to remain a member in good standing, and to graduate with College Honors, you must maintain a cumulative grade point average of 3.5 or higher.
If your cumulative grade point average falls to between 3.5 and 3.25, you may remain in the Program on a probationary status. Students on probationary status do not have the privilege of registering early for classes. (See Section IV of this guide for more information on the privilege of registering early.) If your cumulative grade point average falls below 3.25, you will not be allowed to continue in the Program. If you bring your cumulative grade point average back up to the probationary level, however, you may apply for readmission to the Program.
GPA and course requirements for writing a Senior Thesis:
College Honors: You must graduate with an overall GPA of at least 3.50 and you must have completed three honors courses (if you have not completed this requirement by the start of your senior year, contact Dr. Catone immediately).
Departmental Distinction: You must graduate with an overall GPA of at least 3.25 and you must graduate with a GPA in your concentration of at least 3.50; see Dr. Catone with questions about your GPA.
Senior Thesis
The Senior Honors Thesis gives you a wonderful opportunity to conduct independent research. Although the project will likely be in your area of concentration (or one of them, if you have several), the possibilities are endless. Students in the past have chosen a wide variety of projects. Some have combined them with independent study projects, study abroad or Albright Creative Research Experience (ACRE) Grants. For more information on ACRE Grants, contact the provost’s office.
Your project will consist of some type of research, a written presentation of that research in the form of a thesis, and a personal presentation of that research to the Albright College community. There are several major deadlines you must keep in mind to remain on track with the project. They are described below for students who are graduating in the Spring. If you are graduating in the fall, you must speak with the senior thesis coordinator (currently Dr. Catone) to set up deadlines. Also below you will find examples of past Senior Honors Theses and Projects.
Choosing a Topic, Adviser, and Readers: In your junior year (or even earlier in some cases), you will want to select your topic, your adviser, and two readers. Near the end of your junior year, you must submit a form to the Coordinator of Senior Honors Projects, indicating what your topic will be and bearing the signatures of your adviser and readers. Your adviser, who must be a full-time member of the Albright faculty, will be the person working with you most closely on your project. Assuming your project is in your area of concentration, one of your readers will come from within your department, and one will be from outside your department. This will allow you to receive feedback from specialists as well as a well-educated non-specialist. Like your adviser, your readers must also be full-time members of the Albright faculty. If you and your adviser agree that it is important to include as a reader an adjunct member of the faculty or someone not on Albright’s faculty, you must submit an explanation, signed by your adviser, detailing why it is important to include this individual as a reader.
Summer Research: Although project timelines vary, you will almost certainly want to conduct serious work on your project over the summer before your senior year. This may involve preparing a detailed bibliography, doing background reading, collecting data or engaging in laboratory work, and it may be conducted at home, on campus, or at a special site in the U.S. or abroad. You may want to consider applying for an ACRE Grant to support this part of your research.
Submitting a Proposal: Shortly after the beginning of the fall semester of your senior year, you will submit a proposal to your adviser and readers. They will review your proposal and make suggestions on how to improve it. After making the necessary changes, you will submit your proposal to the Honors Committee via the Online Senior Thesis Proposal Form. The Honors Committee will review your proposal and let you know of any revisions its members would like you to make.
As you write your proposal, keep in mind that you will be submitting it to the Honors Committee, which includes faculty members from a variety of disciplines. Make sure that your writing is clear and that your thoughts are as accessible as possible to a wide audience. There is no specified length for your proposal. More important than its length is its thoroughness and clarity. It may be helpful to know that many successful proposals in the past have been about two to three pages before they were submitted via the online form.
Proposal Requirements: Your final proposal will be submitted electronically using the Online Senior Thesis Proposal Form (link below), you should use the following guide to draft your proposal. You will then be able to copy and paste the contents of your proposal into the web form for submission. Your thesis proposal must contain the following sections:
- An account of how you became interested in the project.
- Your goals for the project.
- A tentative hypothesis or thesis; for art/theatre projects, a contextualization of your goals.
- Your proposed methods of inquiry.
- A summary of preliminary research.
- A preliminary bibliography.
- A timeline for the project containing a brief outline of monthly progress goals.
Avoiding Common Oversights: The Honors Committee will flag proposals that lack a clear goal, hypothesis, or context. Also, proposals that do not contain a sufficient bibliography and timeline will be returned for revision. Please be sure to include all seven of the sections listed above in your proposal. Online Senior Thesis Proposal Form
Submitting the Rough Draft: One reason it is important for you to construct a timeline for completing the various stages of your project is that it will help you avoid the devastating effects of procrastinating on a project as large as this. Be sure to include in your timeline the submission of a rough draft to your adviser and readers in late February. (Check the calendar at the end of this section for the exact date.) This is an important step in ensuring that you are on track to finish your project on time. The further along you are at this stage the more time you will have for revising and polishing your thesis. Depending on your topic, you may well find this task of revising and polishing to be the most important part of your entire project. If done well, this part of independent research can be very rewarding and can result in whole new levels of clarity and insight.
Submitting the Thesis: Thesis submission involves three stages. First, you must submit your thesis to your adviser and readers, who will make suggestions for changes. (To avoid unpleasant surprises at this stage, you will want to make sure that you have been working closely with them throughout the entire process.) Second, you will revise your thesis in accordance with the suggestions made. (If you disagree with a particular suggestion, you will want to create a compelling argument to convince your adviser and readers that your thesis is stronger without following it.) Third, you will submit the final copy of your thesis to the Honors Committee via the Coordinator of Senior Honors Projects. Your thesis must be accompanied by a signed cover page, a library release form, and an abstract. At this point, the Honors Committee entrusts the review of the content of your thesis to your adviser and readers and merely checks to make sure that the thesis and its accompanying forms are all complete and submitted on time.
The Honors Committee has not set a minimum length requirement for your thesis. Its length will depend on your project and the discipline in which you are working. In general, theses in the sciences tend to be shorter than those in the humanities, since their main point is usually to report the results of experiments or the interpretation of data. As a general guideline, if you are writing a thesis in the sciences, you may want to aim for 20-30 pages. If you are writing one in the humanities, on the other hand, you will probably want to aim for 40-50 pages.
Presenting Your Research: One of the most exciting aspects of your research will be the presentation of your conclusions to a campus-wide audience. You will be asked to present your research to the Albright College community during Honors Week in the spring. You may choose to present your work orally (using slides, overheads, or Power Point as needed) or during the Honors Week poster session.
Oral presentations are 15 minutes long, plus time for a few questions from the audience. Since your audience may contain faculty and students from a variety of disciplines, you should try to make your presentation as accessible to them as reasonably possible. If your project is quite technical, you should at least be able to explain simply and clearly its larger context and importance before proceeding to the parts that only a specialist would be able to follow. Presentations have typically been presented in Klein. If you choose to present your research via a poster, you will be expected to be present to answer questions about it during the honors week poster session in the Center for the Arts Mezzanine.
Examples of Past Theses
Examples of Past Theses: Click this link to view the abstracts from last year’s senior honors theses.
What Are the Benefits of Joining the Honors Program?
Joining the Honors Program allows you to become a special member of the honors community. You will have unique opportunities to learn from, and contribute to, a group of students and professors who have a special dedication to learning. This dedication extends to learning in a variety of contexts — in the classroom, of course, but also in the residence halls and in the world of research.
Membership in this community comes with special privileges. You will be able to register early for courses, which makes it more likely that you will be able to get both the honors courses and the regular courses you want. You will also be able to fulfill some of your general studies or concentration requirements in the special environment of honors courses. These courses tend to be smaller than regular courses. Honors courses are typically capped at 15, and many of them have 10 or fewer students in the class. Obviously, this kind of intimate setting allows for more personal interaction and bonding with professors and classmates. While these courses don’t necessarily involve a lot more work than regular courses, they do present greater opportunities and challenges and the chance to face these opportunities and challenges in the company of other highly talented and motivated students.
One of the greatest benefits of the Honors Program is the opportunity to undertake a year-long independent research project. (See the description of Senior Honors Projects in Section III above.) This provides the richest learning experience of your entire college career. Such an experience will provide you with skills and practice in solving unscripted problems and answering questions that have not previously been answered. These are skills that are most valued by future employers. Successful completion of the Albright College Honors Programs demonstrates your willingness to learn and challenge yourself, and will make your application to a job, professional school, or graduate school stand out.
By joining the Honors Program, you will also enjoy membership in the Honors Club and the possibility of living in proximity to other honors students your first year, and choosing your housing a bit earlier as a Junior/Senior.
Another great benefit of the Honors Program occurs at graduation. Provided you have successfully completed all the requirements of the program, College Honors will be conferred upon you. This includes recognition during the graduation ceremony, an honors medal, as well as the special designation on your diploma.
What Is the Difference Between Academic Honors, Departmental Distinction, and College Honors?
Academic Honors, Departmental Distinction and College Honors are honorific designations awarded at graduation. Although these designations have overlapping requirements, they are awarded independently of each other.
Academic Honors is awarded by the academic dean strictly on the basis of grade point average. You will graduate with Academic Honors if your final cumulative grade point average is 3.5 or higher. If it is between 3.50 and 3.69, you will graduate cum laude; if it is between 3.70 and 3.84, you will graduate magna cum laude; and if it is 3.85 or above, you will graduate summa cum laude.
Departmental Distinction is awarded to students who have met certain requirements in their department. You will graduate with Departmental Distinction if your final cumulative grade point average is 3.25 or higher, your final departmental grade point average is 3.5 or higher, and you successfully complete a Senior Honors Project in the same department. Be sure to check with your adviser or department chair for any additional departmental requirements.
College Honors is awarded to students who have successfully fulfilled the requirements of the Albright College Honors Program. You will graduate with College Honors if you satisfy the honors course requirements, maintain a cumulative grade point average of 3.5 or higher and successfully complete a Senior Honors Project.
Please note that the same Senior Honors Project may count toward both Departmental Distinction and College Honors.
What Is the Honors Club?
All students registered for the Albright College Honors Program are automatically welcomed into the Honors Club. The Honors Club is headed by an executive board consisting of four student officers and a faculty adviser.
The persons filling these positions this year are as follows:
President
Vice President
Secretary
Treasurer
Faculty Adviser
The Honors Club plans a variety of activities, such as study nights, information sessions, and supports attendance at Senior Thesis presentations.
Honors Club meetings are scheduled as necessary throughout the year to conduct the business of the club.
The Honors Club encourages its members to volunteer their time in service projects on campus and in the community. The Honors Chair coordinates the service efforts of members of the Honors Club.
Whom May I Contact With Questions About The Honors Program?
Dr. Julia Heberle, Director of the Albright College Honors Program, Chair of the Honors Committee, Associate Professor of Psychology
Kim Justeson, Director of Experiential Learning
Dr. Christopher Catone, Coordinator of Senior Honors Projects, Associate Professor of Mathematics